KARACHI, July 13: After having risen sharply higher during the last couple of sessions, cotton prices were firmly held at their current peak levels but spinners took a breather before resuming fresh buying.

Floor brokers said the physical activity was relatively slow because Punjab ginners observed Friday as weekly holiday but some of them indulged in business late in the evening.

Much of the buying enquiries were centered around the central Punjab lint which was available on ready basis as some of the spinners and mills needed prompt deliveries to supplement their falling inventories, they said.

Spinners said higher New York cotton futures prices had made imports uncompetitive at least for the near-term and “we have to rely on the local new and current crop stuff to keep the wheels moving”.

They said the foreign stuff being quoted around 68 cents per lb was well above our export parity level making our exports expensive as the world textile prices had not increased correspondingly.

“What worries us are reports of damage to the new crop in Sindh because of rain and flash floods and that may further aggravate the supply position leading to price flare-up,” they added.

Official spot rates were, however, held unchanged at the last level of Rs2,850 per maund in the absence of feedback from the ready market.

New York cotton futures on the other hand stayed unchanged at 65.25 cents per lb for the ruling October settlement, while the forward December contract was quoted higher by 0.13 cents per lb at 67.05 cents.

Ready offtake was light and confined to stray lots of the current crop purchased by the local spinners.